On February 5, this year, the German Social-Democratic Party buried Paul Singer,
one of its oldest leaders. The entire working-class population of Berlin, many
hundreds of thousands of people, responded to the call of the Party and marched
in the funeral procession; they came to honour the memory of a man who had
devoted all his strength and all his life to the cause of the emancipation of
the working class. Berlin, with its three-million population, had never seen
such a multitude—at least a million people marched in or watched the
procession. Never had any of the mighty of this world been honoured with such a
funeral. Tens of thousands of soldiers can be ordered to line the streets during
the funeral of some monarch or a general famous for the slaughter of external
and internal enemies; but if the working people in their millions were not
attached heart and soul to their leader, to the cause of the
revolutionary struggle of these very masses against the oppression of
the government and the bourgeoisie, it would be impossible to rouse the
population of a huge city.

Paul Singer came of bourgeois stock, from a family of merchants, and
for quite a long time was a wealthy manufacturer. At the beginning of his
political career he was associated with the bourgeois democrats. But,
unlike the bulk of bourgeois democrats and liberals, who very soon forget
their love of liberty out of fear of the successes of the labour movement,
Singer was an ardent and sincere democrat, fearless and consistent to the
end. He was not caught up by the vacillations, cowardice and treachery of
the bourgeois democrats which aroused in him only a feeling of
repulsion and strengthened his conviction that only the party of the
revolutionary working class is capable of pursuing the great struggle for
liberty to its consummation.

In the sixties of the past century, when the cowardly German liberal
bourgeoisie turned its back on the growing revolution in their country, was
bargaining with the government of the landowners and becoming reconciled to
the unlimited power of the monarchy, Singer turned resolutely toward
socialism. In 1870, when the entire bourgeoisie was intoxicated by the
victories over France, and when the broad masses of the population fell
under the spell of the vile, misanthropic, “liberal” propaganda of
nationalism and chauvinism, Singer signed a protest against the annexation
of Alsace and Lorraine from France. In 1878, when the bourgeoisie helped
Bismarck, that reactionary, landlords’ (“Junkers’”, as the
Germans say) minister, to promulgate the Anti-Socialist
Law,[1] to dissolve the workers’ unions, ban working-class newspapers,
and shower persecution upon the class-conscious proletariat, Singer finally
joined the Social-Democratic Party.

Since then the history of Singer’s life is inseparably bound up with
that of the German Social-Democratic Party. He devoted himself heart and
soul to the difficult task of building up the revolutionary
organisation. He gave the Party all his energy, all his wealth, all his
remarkable abilities as an organiser, all his talent as a practical worker
and leader. Singer was one of those few, we might say, one of the extremely
rare cases of socialists of bourgeois origin whom the long history of
liberalism, the history of the treachery, cowardice, deals with the
government, and sycophancy of the bourgeois politicians does not enervate
and corrupt; but it steels and converts them into stalwart
revolutionaries. There are few such socialists of
bourgeois origin, and the proletariat should trust only these rare
people, people who have been tested in the course of many years of
struggle, if it desires to forge for itself a working-class party capable
of overthrowing contemporary bourgeois slavery. Singer was a ruthless enemy
of opportunism in the ranks of the German workers’ party, and to the end of
his days remained undeviatingly faithful to the uncompromising policy of
revolutionary Social-Democracy.

Singer was not a theoretician, or a writer, or a brilliant orator. He
was first and foremost a practical organiser of the
illegal party during the period of the Anti-Socialist Law, and a
member of the Berlin Municipal Council and, after the repeal of that law,
of the Reichstag. And this practical organiser, who spent most of his time
in minor, everyday, technical parliamentary and every kind of “executive”
activity was great for the reason that he did not make a fetish of details,
he did not yield to the quite usual and quite philistine tendency to keep
out of any sharp struggle on questions of principle, allegedly for the sake
of this “executive” or “positive” activity. On the contrary, every time
a question arose concerning the fundamental nature of the revolutionary
party of the working class, its ultimate aims, blocs (alliances) with the
bourgeoisie, concessions to monarchism, etc., Singer, who devoted all his
life to this practical activity, was always to be found at the head of the
staunchest and most resolute fighters against every manifestation of
opportunism. During the operation of the Anti-Socialist Law, Singer
together with Engels, Liebknecht and Bebel was in the fight on two fronts:
against the
“young”,[2] the semi-anarchists, who repudiated the parliamentary
struggle, and against the moderate “legalists at any price”. In later
years, Singer fought just as resolutely against the revisionists.

He earned the hatred of the bourgeoisie, and it followed him to the
grave. Singer’s bourgeois enemies (the German liberals and our Cadets) now
point out with malicious glee that his death means the passing away of one
of the last representatives of the “heroic” period of German
Social-Democracy, that is to say, the period when its leaders were imbued
with a strong, fresh, unqualified faith in revolution and championed a
principled revolutionary policy. According to these liberals, the rising
generation of leaders, those who are coming to replace Singer, are
moderate, punctilious “revisionists”, men of modest pretensions and petty
calculations. It is true that the growth of the workers’ party often
attracts many opportunists to its ranks. It is also true that in our day
socialists of bourgeois origin most often bring to the proletariat their
timidity, narrow-mindedness and love of phrase-mongering rather than
firmness of revolutionary convictions. But the rejoicing of the enemies is
premature! The masses of workers in Germany, as well as in other
countries, are becoming welded ever more strongly into an army of
revolution, and this army will deploy its forces in the not far
distant future—for the revolution is gaining momentum both in Germany and
in other countries.

The old revolutionary leaders are passing away; but the young army of
the revolutionary proletariat is growing and gaining strength.

Notes

[1]The Anti-Socialist Law (Exceptional Law Against the
Socialists) was promulgated in Germany in 1878. Under this law all
organisations of the Social-Democratic Party and all workers’ mass
organisations were forbidden; the working-class press was proscribed and
socialist literature forbidden; repressions against Social-Democrats
began. The law was annulled in 1890 under pressure of the working-class
movement.

[2]The “young”—the petty-bourgeois semi-anarchist
opposition in the German Social-Democratic Party; emerged in 1890. Its
central group consisted of young writers and students (hence the name) who
claimed the role of theoreticians and leaders in the party. This opposition
did not understand the changes that took place
after the rescinding of the Anti-Socialist Law (1878–90) and denied the
need for making use of legal forms of struggle; they opposed the
participation of Social-Democrats in Parliament and accused the party of
defending the interests of the petty bourgeoisie and of opportunism. Engels
engaged in struggle against the “young”.